How gay softball rekindled love of the sport for this nonbinary athlete

I hadn’t stepped into a batter’s box in any meaningful way for 20 years when I joined a local softball league in 2023.

Outside of a tryout for an adult baseball league in Atlanta in the late 2000s, my time with any form of the sport ended with the combination of getting cut during tryouts and suffering a multitude of injuries during a car accident in high school.

I don’t know what that version of myself would think if they knew that they would be prepping to play in the 2026 Gay Softball World Series two decades later. So much about me, how I view myself, how I define myself is gulfs apart from the adolescent who wouldn’t even have the language to fully recognize themself until long into adulthood.

But that’s where I find myself. As I write this, the team I play for, the Portland Reign, in the local iPride chapter, the Rose City Softball Association, is days away from walking off a plane in Columbus, Ohio, to play in one of the largest queer sporting events in the world. It is equal parts exciting and emotional to have that on the horizon.

That forthcoming moment calls up memories of how my relationship with baseball and softball cracked the seal between sport, culture and identity over my lifetime. While football was the first sport I fell in love with as a fan, baseball was my first as an athlete. I went to more camps for soccer, made more all-star teams in basketball and had more glory moments (or what passes for those in the equivalent of Pop Warner) in football, but baseball was the most fulfilling.

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It is why it was so tough for me to have it taken away from me at a young age and flounder to find ways to regain it through my adulthood. Baseball was where I felt the most connected to and supported by my teammates and coaches. It was a source of community that also helped develop the chip I continue to carry on my shoulder to prove people wrong. I never looked like an athlete, but, as the famous John Kruk quote goes, I never doubted I was a ball player.

It was that desire to prove myself to that inner critic and find a community after moving across the country that pushed me back onto the diamond. Trading baseball for softball wasn’t a hard choice. I remember going to the ball field with my parents, watching them play in the local church league and wishing to be old enough to play with them.

That became exponentially more important with the Reign because of how explicitly queer the team and league are. It was a rarity for me to play on a team where I wasn’t the only out queer person on the team, and I have historically found it difficult to find where I fit within queer culture and communities around me. But with the Reign, everything naturally meshed. I felt at home immediately.

I joined a local rec league in the fall of 2023 and immediately felt at home again. That evolved into me joining a second team in another league and ultimately the Reign. Three days a week, the highlight of my day is meeting up with teammates who have become closer friends over the last few years and finding out just how much of that little leaguer still exists within me.

Are we the best team? No, but it doesn’t consume us. Vibes, camaraderie and spirit are just as important as winning for us. I don’t know if I would feel so linked to my teammates without that focus. It is the exact mix that I needed at this point in my life. Reflecting on it, it is exactly why I connect so well with the Reign and my other teams in the local rec league.

I know that all my teammates across all three teams will not only pick me up but will have my back, especially on the rare occasion that an opponent is outwardly hostile toward me over my gender identity.

All of that is why it was a no-brainer when the opportunity to play in the Gay Softball World Series presented itself. This tournament is defined as much by the competitive spirit as the communal one, and there is nothing that defines the value I derive from getting back onto the field than that cocktail.

Who knows how we’ll perform, but that is a distant concern. Three rec league titles, multiple runs in regional tournaments, a RCSA team MVP award and even a rekindling with baseball through a local pickup group have come because I keep that concern at arm’s length in my mind.

It boils down to the mantra I tell myself before every game and will be on my mind as I step onto the field in Columbus with my crew: Have fun. Lock in. Crowns up.

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